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A model is presented for the process of harvesting electrical energy from CO2 emissions using capacitive cells. The principle consists of controlling the mixing process of a concentrated CO2 gas stream with a dilute CO2 gas stream (as, for example, exhaust gas and air), thereby converting part of the released mixing energy into electrical energy. The model describes the transient reactive transport of CO2 gas absorbed in water or in monoethanolamine (MEA) solutions, under the assumption of local chemical equilibrium. The model combines the selective transport of ions through ion-exchange membranes, the accumulation of charge in the porous carbon electrodes and the coupling between the ionic current and the produced electrical current and power. We demonstrate that the model can be used to calculate the energy that can be extracted by mixing concentrated and dilute CO2 containing gas streams. Our calculation results for the process using MEA solutions have various counterintuitive features, including: 1. When dynamic equilibrium is reached in the cyclical process, the electrical charge in the anode is negative both during charging and discharging; 2. Placing an anion-exchange membrane (AEM) in the system is not required, the energy per cycle is just as large with or without an AEM., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Recently, a new technology has been proposed for the utilization of energy from CO2 emissions (Hamelers et al., 2014). The principle consists of controlling the dilution process of CO2-concentrated gas (e.g., exhaust gas) into CO2-dilute gas (e.g., air) thereby extracting a fraction of the released mixing energy. In this paper, we describe the theoretical fundamentals of this technology when using a pair of charge-selective capacitive electrodes. We focus on the behavior of the chemical system consisting of CO2 gas dissolved in water or monoethanolamine solution. The maximum voltage given for the capacitive cell is theoretically calculated, based on the membrane potential. The different aspects that affect this theoretical maximum value are discussed., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)